and from afghanistan to iraq and a thousand other places, they are doing just that. and doing it magnificently. they are supported by extraordinary family who is work and worry and wait and who serve every bit as much. all of them know the stakes, all of them know that the people behind the 9/11 attacks are planning and plotting others, that al qaeda and its extremist allies would like nothing better than to strike us again. 8 years of war has changed our troops and their families, but it has not vested them. indeed, it is difficult to describe the selflessness i see when i visit them in the field and in the fleet, in hospitals, and here at home. so rather than reach for words i do not possess, i will turn to those of the poet william earnest henly which idly speak -- i believe they speak best for the meaning of this day. in the fell clutch of circumstance, i have not winced, norcried allowed. under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed. beyond this place of wrath, and tears, looms but the horror of the shade and yet the menace of the years, finds